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There is currently a trend in the Western world to slow down in life. The idea basically says that a wise move in our fast-moving world today is to move slow, to really live our lifes, not just to get through moments in it in a never-ending race against clock. In the 21st century we live the culture of speeding things up, even for things that by their very nature are slow. We love speed so much to the extent that we end up losing the joy of living.

Another trend is focusing on a single task at a time, mono-tasking, instead of doing multiple things at once or multi-tasking. We try to do too many things simultaneously in the name of productivity or efficiency, but the real thing is that we reduce the experiential aspect of each task to minimum. What is good in that?

When was the last time you’re satisfied from a small task you’ve accomplished?

I am afraid that most of us now have lost that small joy we used to had. The world moves in a much-faster-than-ever-before mode, and we are sucked in it. We all suddenly become runners and multi-taskers, or at least forced to become ones. Our wordly measures of progress has significantly increased, but at the same time, our joy decreased. We become more like robots over time.

Ever noticed that time runs so fast? It is a clear indication that we are living in such a world that things run in high speed, or as people say it, there is too much speed in the system.

Why live in such a hurry?

That question alone is enough to make us reflect on our daily lives. Since this life is the only life we will ever have, I think it is good for everybody to retreat, and try to proceed in a slower pace, in more meaningful steps.

It is the simple life that is worth living. It is a life with more time to ask ourselves deep and fundamental questions, to live a life of purpose.

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Sometimes the only thing you need after a long day is a piece of music, a piece of melody that can bring you a sense of peace inside. A music that is just right. A song that goes deep into your heart, and hearing that music alone can almost always assure you that everything will just be all right.

The following of Enya titled Only Time is one of the master pieces that I always found perfect after a long working day. I hope you’ll find a piece of peace listening to this beautiful song, as I did.

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That is what Robert Waldinger tells us through this video. Many of us might be surprised of this finding, as most of us grew believing the opposite. A long study on happiness has now revealed the old-as-the-hills wisdom on how to build fulfilling life.

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To reminisce a bit, I once made an attempt to be a freelance web designer, and that was all for fun. I bought a business domain name, crafted my landing page, and try to promote my page to friends online and offline, in a hope that some of them, or friends of them, would be my future client.

And it didn’t work out well.

That was around 2010. Fast forward, I am now working as an AD engineer for a bio gas plant treating Palm Oil Mill Effluent as a substrate. The two jobs – AD engineer and web designer – are clearly not linear. Very distinct jobs. But what it is from the past that I can make use of today?

It is design.

As its title implies, web designer designs web pages. Design here refers to aesthetics and usability of a web page. The web page must first be useful and 100% functional, and second, it must be beautiful. Design also deals with the flow of information on a web page.

All these are somehow useful in my current job.

As an example, crafting reports. Our monthly reports have a totally different look, and not just that, we always try to make every piece of information is well understood by telling stories. We don’t just report numbers, but we add story to it to make it more beautiful, more alive and easily understood. The hope is to make it readable and easily understood, even for people with no prior experience in this kind of industry. If we are willing enough to make things better, we’ll find ways.

This little example shows that the skills you learned in the past can be useful someday in the future. Job hopping can be good, since we learn many useful skills in each job, and those skills altogether can be useful in the future job.

Things we learn in the past certainly affect how we behave in the future.

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If you work hard enough and persevere, someday you’ll end up being a successful person.

That is the common conception of success that many people hold as true. Success is a function of hard work and perseverance. One who wants to succeed must first work hard enough toward his or her goals or dreams, and do it with perseverance. Given enough time, he will succeed.

But that is not the case most of the time.

There is another element to make success really works: support. This is clear, as no single human being can do best on his or her own capacity alone. Even a great scientist like Newton mentioned that all his great works in science were possible because he was standing on the shoulders of giants, meaning he has done it because of the support of other scientists. No such thing as single man show. The show may look like a single man show, but the show itself won’t be possible without other men behind.

When people refer to successful people, it is a better approach to look now for the support system behind them, the pure human connection upon where their success stands. It is itself an interesting subject to do research on, and I believe that the pure human connection is the best remedy during hard times and the most effective booster for a remarkable leap to success.

Just like a family. Parents support their children in the purest form of connection, hoping the best of life for their children. This kind of support, along with hard work and perseverance, is the formula for reaching success.

Such a success won’t be even possible without the loving and caring parents. They are there during hard times to give all the support the children need, and they are there behind the stage when the children finally succeed.

So when you are on the stage of success someday, remember to look for the support team behind. Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your partners, your spouse, your friends. They are all there as a reason for your success.

But please keep this in mind: If those three are all the elements required for success, that success may not be as complete as a success with another element within it: a personal relationship with God.

Really successful people put aside their ego and let this divine power lead their lives. This is the kind of success I refer to when I started writing this post. The real success can not be measured by worldly metrics, because there must be a divine factor within a true success, which no one on this world can not even start to measure.